The First Emperor Ying Zheng was a controversial figure in real history. He unified the six kingdoms, wrote books with the same text, and drove cars with the same track, built the Great Wall, and burned books to embarrass Confucian scholars. He did a lot of great things and a lot of terrible things. His life was like a flame that illuminated and burned an era.
But in this story, he's given a chance - a chance to start over. An opportunity to use knowledge to change the world. An opportunity to complete an impossible task in two thousand years.
He jumped at the chance.